What I know about the situation at Zaum Studio OÜ, developers of Disco Elysium
Perhaps you've heard of the deplorable situation of Disco Elysium's fired leads, of the oust by majority shareholder and CEO, of the lawsuits and rest of the cultural association and 'old guard' still at work there, quiet and held quiet by corporate policy and perhaps embittered by the 'auteur' theory holding parasocial public.
What I am going to share with you is information that is publicly available through Estonian and United Kingdom company registers. I haven't seen any news outlet feature this information yet.
WHAT IS NEW HERE?
Ilmar Kompus, the current CEO who was installed in 2020, had actually been a shareholder all along since Zaum Studio's founding in Estonia.
Kaur Kender, the author in his own right and producer at Zaum, has founded a lot of game development companies in Estonia and United Kingdom, while Zaum worked, published and updated Disco Elysium. These apparently went nowhere, some of them are now defunct. All of them had Ilmar Kompus or some ZAUM subsidiary as shareholders, and some also shared correspondence addresses with ZAUM's UK subsidiaries.
The 'game pitch' that cost Zaum 4,8 million euros and funded Kompus' acquisition of majority share from Linnamäe, the so called Pioneer One, has been previously reported by one gaming news outlet to have come via Anu Reiman's YESSIRNOSIR Limited. I have discovered that Kaur Kender held a game company in UK called Pioneer One Ltd that was active between years 2018-2022, and it had an Estonian artist Kristiina Ago as its secretary. I cannot prove that it was this entity that sold it instead, but it is a glaring coincidence nevertheless.
Kaur Kender and later Ilmar Kompus have founded a succession of ZAUM studios (Zaum London, Zaum UK, Disco Elysium UK and now Zaum Studio Limited) which have held the main development operations in UK. Kurvits and Rostov/Taal hold minority shares in Zaum UK. The later ones are all Ilmar Kompus-held in shares. I suspect this is a method of his to sever the fired leads' means of control to the company's branches in UK.
Both the 'main line' of Zaum's UK companies and Zaum Studio OÜ back in Estonia have loaned money to the tune of millions to Newelysium and Revachol in UK (Note, Revachol OÜ in Estonia is held by ZAUM cultural association members and is not a game studio)
What does it all mean then? I am not certain. I have not practical experience in game dev industry to say whether constantly making side companies or shells is a sign of a healthy leadership.
However looking at all the shell companies made near annually, and how the successive ‘main studios’ have consolidated into Kompus’ hands, I am going to speculate a bit.
This has been a long con. Whether there was going to be a product that sold well or not, Kompus, Haavel and Kender were going be the ones collecting the jackpot. There were shell companies being established even as the game was floundering after the estonians’ walkout. All the ‘artists’ had to do was just do the work and not get in the way of money.
But then ZA/UM made an award-winning darling game of the year. TV show adaptation deals. Lead developers like Kurvits and Hindpere standing at the Game Awards Show spotlight. Audience eating up all that and latching onto whatever crumb and morsel might come next.
A clean exit sale out of a modest studio became impossible. Now there were developers in the studio who knew they were worth A LOT and with shareholders’ power both in Zaum Studio OÜ and Zaum UK Ltd to hamper any sale to Tencent, Amazon or Microsoft. Now we reach the part of “toxic misogynist auteurs trying to steal the IP for themselves.” who had to be let go.
Kender's lawsuit around the turn of 2022-2023 and divestiture of his Zaum Studio OÜ shares as result muddles the water for this speculated theory even more as he still holds directorship in a number of shell companies with Kompus back in UK. There is also Dark Maths Studios that he founded this April in UK, so it remains to be seen what he'll do and if its with Kompus and Haavel or alone.
Interviews folks inside and outside the company too.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JGIGA8taN-M
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=du4Zjiv7bQs&t=0s (the CEO) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SrN0KXeQ0v4&t=0s (Writer)
My takes under the cut based on the main video, haven’t seen the full interviews yet:
Kurvitz signed off his rights to Sacred and Terrible Air and Disco Elysium to the company
An inner circle existed inside the company centered around Kurvits, which sought to work on the sequel BUT: 1) they 'wanted to see the game's source code and considered making a new company around it', 2) upset lot of Kurvits' friends with preferential treatment to the inner circle, 3) alarmed management but 4) management had already formed Newelysium Ltd to handle the sequel separately from Zaum London/Zaum UK/Disco Elysium UK to satisfy Linnamäe's conditions to sell his share to the CEO Ilmar Kompus
Kurvits' friends and coworkers think he's a shit leader and manager and he's got that cult leader charisma without proper people skill to manage them and they resent him for it + moneymen capitalized on this to sow more salt
Kurvits was unrepentant in the video, he did not think he was at fault towards his friends and coworkers
Inner circle at large is digging in and not admitting fault
The moneymen still remain shady about the structure, management, shifting around employees before they'd be entitled to benefits
Harrier Du Bois is the latest and worst self-insert of Kurvits down to pat. Self-destructive rock star hated by colleagues
